Happy Birthday Max!

Max turned eight and he was very excited about his birthday. It's crazy how fast time goes. I always look back at that day that he made me a mom. How he came into this world 10 weeks early and scared the crap out of us. He has been nothing but joy in our family and I truly love spending as much time as I can with him because before I know it he will be a teenager and will only want to hang out with his friends.

With that said, I like to do anything I can to make his birthday extra special. I may even go over the top a little, but he deserves it. I did the annual balloons covering his bedroom door. Now that he's older I added even more balloons to make it a little harder to get out. 

Just for fun, I did a yard sign from Card my Yard. They come out and stake the sign for you and will return a couple days later to remove the yard sign. Since we are in AZ and the ground is super hard we had to water the area for 12 hours prior to their arrival so they could actually get the sign in the ground. Max was a little embarrassed by this because he didn't think everyone in the neighborhood needed to know it was his birthday. I think it was a fun idea though and I truly believed he loved the sign.

This little foodie revolved his day around what we were going to eat for each meal. We started the morning off with IHOP for breakfast and a surprise trampoline gift. Zoe loves the trampoline too. She jumped up right away and was jumping around like crazy. I think she likes the extra space that his small trampoline did not have.

For lunch, Max requested his favorite, Chipotle, and then for dinner, he experienced hibachi for the first time. He thought this was pretty cool and wants to do it again. For the record, he did not catch the flying shrimp, but maybe next time.

We ended the day with presents and him blowing out the candle on his blizzard because he really does not like cake. 

Busy Weekend

 Due to Max's social life, we had a very busy weekend. On Friday night Max had a party at Peter Piper for the end of baseball season. We were there for a couple hours while Max played with his friends and we hung out with the parents. He played so many games that he had enough plastic chatch-keys to bring home.

On Saturday morning we celebrated Max's birthday with his friends at Big Air. He has been waiting for this event for months now. He was so excited to see all of his friends from first grade. We had 13 kids attend the party. It was a lot of fun, but I might have been more exhausted after the party than Max. 

Saturday night we had the Campbell's over for pizza and swimming to figure out a Plan B for the fourth of July weekend. We were supposed to go camping, but with the whole state on fire that's not going to happen anymore. I am not sure what we are going to do since having a puppy limits us on where we can go and what we can do. Needless to say, Plan B was never figured out.

Sunday was Father's Day and we got to celebrate Andy all day. I made him Belgium waffles that he likes and he and Max just lounged around all day. We swam and ordered dinner from our favorite Italian restaurant.

We also got to see Tayler on Sunday. She's in town for work because she's helping open up a Mr. Brews Taphouse. It was good to see Tayler and Max was beyond excited to see her again since he hasn't seen her in a long time. 

The restaurant had a soft opening on Tuesday night for friends and family and Tayler invited us. We were so glad we were able to attend and support Tayler.

Weekend Update

 It was a long weekend, but that's because Friday was a long day. Max had an EEG on Friday morning that his doctor ordered as a routine check-up to see if his brainwaves have improved from three years ago. We were told to keep him up until midnight on Thursday night and then wake him up at 4am on Friday morning so that he would be exhausted for the EEG and fall asleep quickly. He made it to 11:30 on Thursday night and he got out of bed at 5:30 on Friday morning. We tried to get him up at 5am, but that was very hard. He was so tired! Needless to say, we were all very tired on Friday morning. 

His neurologist called me on Monday to let us know that there has been no change at all with his brainwaves and he expected improvement over three years for a kid with no disease and with a normal MRI. In fact the doctor said it was exactly the same reading from three years ago it's just signed by a different person. Instead of just switching up his medication, his neurologist is referring us to a colleague who only works with epileptic kids. He feels with a normal brain we should have improvement and the whole goal is to get Max to outgrow his seizures. His appointment with the new neurologist is next week on the 17th, so we were able to get him in quickly. I will keep you all updated on the progress.

On Saturday we went to see Stella's play in downtown Chandler. This is the first time we got to see her perform live in over a year, so it was a lot of fun. The play was God Speed and let's just say I really didn't understand the storyline and maybe we need to go to church? But, the kids did a great job. They all put a lot of effort into it and you could tell they were having fun. Following the play, we all went out to dinner in a bustling downtown Chandler. That was actually really nice to see people out again.

On Sunday we went for a four-mile bike ride even though it was pretty hot out. It was just nice to get out of the house and be active. We made a pit stop at Bahama Bucks to get a frozen treat before we headed back home.

After the bike ride, we cooled off in the pool. We even got Zoe in the pool with us. Sorry, but I didn't get any pics of Zoe in the pool with us.

I hope you all had a great weekend!